How BR, ,gJ d& n Modern'Venus' The Rude Mechanicals' unorthodox A look at the 17-day process that brought former West Virginia men's play about race, gender and inhu- basketball coach John Beilein to Michigan Sports, page 9 manity Arts, page 5 iE HUNdilR gan aIj O N - .IfILrNlD1)-1 'l EE: Nt N I'El;k tI(15IJIIlL) s Ann Arbor, Michigan www.michigandaily.com Robert Frost, Arthur Miller, Leonard Bernstein and the Dalai Lama all have one thing in common: they stayed at the University's .. Friday, April 6, 2007 Two MSA plans take on cost of textbooks GUESTS OF THE 'U' IN By WALTER NOWINSKI Daily News Editor THE INGLI1S HOUSE The University houses some of its most prominent guests at a large mansion overlooking the Arb. " Poet Robert Frost " Playwright and alum Arthur Miller " Members of the royal families of Japan, Greece, Thailand and the Netherlands " President Gerald Ford * Newsman Mike Wallace " Opera star Jessye Norman " Drs. Christiaan Barnard and Jonas Salk " he Dalai Lama * Musicians Leonard Bernstein and Vladi- When University alum and for- mer President Gerald Ford came back to Ann Arbor to watch Michi- gan play Ohio State in football, he didn't get a suite in the Campus Inn or the Bell Tower Hotel. Instead, the University put him up in a 10,000 square-foot mansion locat- ed east of the Nichols Arboretum. The Tudor mansion, called Inglis House, has been owned by the Uni- versity since 1951. It was willed to the University by Detroit industrial- ist James Inglis, who had no direct connection to the school. After sit- ting idle forthree years, the mansion was converted into the official Uni- versity guesthouse and a residence for off-campus regents in 1954. Since then, scores of alumni, speakers and dignitaries, including the Dalai Lama, have spent the night in the slate-roofed mansion overlooking the Huron River Valley. It is believed that the house, which cost $250,000 to build in 1929 - about $2.8 million intoday's dollars - was donated to the Uni- versity by James and Elizabeth Inglis to serve as a house for Uni- versity presidents, said Rita Gal- loway, facilities manager for the One calls for release of lists, other for 'understanding' By JESSICA VOSGERCHIAN Daily StaffReporter Michigan Student Assembly members are developing two strategies they say could help reduce the cost of textbooks. The plans are spearheaded by separate MSA committees and take different approaches to the issue. One initiative is to convince University administrators to require professors to release their book lists to students and bookstores earlier in the year, which would allow students to shop for books ahead of time and find the cheapest prices, MSA Vice President Moham- mad Dar said. Dar said Senior Vice Provost Lester Monts suggestedthe idea to adninistrators after an MSA member met with him about the suggestion last winter. If instituted, the earlier dead- line would make bookstores more likely to offer higher buy-back rates for used books that they know are on profes- sors' lists. That would make more used books available for students to purchase the next semester, Dar said. But Dar said MSA and Uni- versity administrators need to pursue the plan carefully so professors don't feel pressured. "Once you infringe on how professors teach their classes you're getting into serious per- sonal space," he said. "We don't want to encroach on the rela- tionship professors have with the bookstores." Dar said the initiative could garner support for fighting text- book prices beyond Ann Arbor. "If campus, faculty, admin- istrators and students realize early is good, then we could use that to address the bigger pub- lishers," he said. The other initiative is the creation of a program in which three or four students would report on the operations of Shaman Drum Bookshop for academic credit, said Eric Li, a former MSA representative who is developingthe program. The idea came from a Janu- ary forum about textbook prices where Shaman Drum owner Karl Pohrt spoke about ways his store could ease the process of buyingtextbooks, Li said. By working in the store for eight to 10 hours a week and examining the store's business records, the students will likely gain insight into the textbook industry and be able to recom- mend ways to fight high prices, Li said. He said the reports the stu- dents will present to MSA will also help students to under- stand the bookselling industry - like the cost of buying from publishers and shipping fees - that factor into the retail prices of books. "We'll be able to see where we have the ability to home in and make change or we'll understand the aspects we can't help," Li said. Li said he thinks students uninvolved with the company will be able to recognize parts of the process that could be improved that Pohrt hasn't noticed in his more than 30 years of experience inbookselling. MSAis also consideringsend- ing representatives to lobby in Lansing this fall for the state government to reduce or elimi- nate sales tax on textbooks, but no concrete plans for the project have been made, Dar said. office of the president. Galloway, who oversees both Inglis house and the President's Residence at 815 S. University Ave., said every University president since 1951 has been offered Inglis House as a residence, but they all have chosen to live on Central Cam- pus instead. Galloway said Univer- sity presidents probably choose to live on Central Campus as opposed to Inglis House as a symbolic ges- ture to show they are engaged with the campus. But the University has found the relative isolation of Inglis House useful when it needs to house a prominent dignitary with some degree of privacy. University spokeswoman Kelly Cunningham said the United States Secret Service preferred to have Ford stay at Inglis House because the secluded 8-acre estate is rela- tively easy to secure. See INGLIS, Page 3A HASH BASH 2007 Rally faces cold, low turnout DEOXYRIBOSE DANCER At campus tradition, student attendance has fallen By ALESE BAGDOL Daily Staff Reporter organizers of tomorrow's Hash Bash hope the Ann Arbor tradition will help convince law- makers to decriminalize getting high. Low temperatures and low student turnout, though, could get in the way. Temperatures in the 30s and a chance of snow are in the fore- cast. Last April, a crowd of about 900 people composed of both elderly hippies with dreadlocks and giddy high school students gathered on the Diag to partici- pate. But the attendance at Hash Bash, which used to number in the thousands,has declined in the last several years, and increas- ingly fewer University students are attending, said Adam Brook, the event's organizer. In the past eight years, 217 peo- ple have been arrested at Hash Bash. Only four of them were University students, Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Diane Brown said. "The demographic at Hash Bash keeps aging," she said. Brown said Hash Bash isn't as student-oriented as many people think. "The event draws a lot of peo- ple from out of town who do not understand or respect the values upheld on this campus," Brown said. But LSA freshman Nathan- iel Morton said he thinks Hash See HASH BASH, Page 3 AUTO INDUSTRY Kerkorian offers $4.5b for Chrysler By MICHELINE MAYNARD The New York Times Kirk Kerkorian is back. After making billions on brazen invest- ments in Hollywood, Las Vegas and Detroit, he is now pursuing Chrysler once more, a dozen years after his last attempt. His investment arm, the Tracin- da Corp., made a $4.5 billion cash offer yesterday for the struggling Chrysler Group that hinges on winning the exclusive right to negotiate with DaimlerChrysler and a deal with the United Auto- mobile Workers union that could mean worker concessions. The bid - proof that Kerkorian See CHRYSLER, Page 7 JEREMY CHO/Daly Dancer Elizabeth Johnson as Miss TATA at the Michigan Theater yesterday. She was part ofa dance group that collaborat- ed with scientists in an effort to show that science can be beautiful In biology, the TATA box is a DNA sequence that starts the DNA transcription process in cell division. Johnson said the TATA box's role is to "turn the genes on." TODAY'S HI: 31 WEATHER LO:19 HAVE A NEWS TIP? call 734-763-2459 or e-mail news@michgandaily.com and letus know. ON THE DAILY'S BLOGS The top ten love stories of our generation MICHIGANDAILYCOM/THEFILTER INDEXN NEWS.... ol.C o S U D O K U (02The MichiganDaly SPJNOKI. michigandailycom OPINION . 2 ARTS ............. . 3 CLASSIFIED.. .4 SPORTS......... .. . ................5 .. . . . . . . . . . . . ..6.. . .. . . . . 5 . ' t ;?6iS S 44 r '.5'" L ' 1,,c . 1 3. ... . .. ,i _Y "1 .... . " r ,